The New York Draft Riot of July 1863 was in large measure a race riot, magnified by labor unrest, unfair draft laws, an unpopular war, religious and ethnic tensions, class antagonisms, and exacerbated by the violence of street gangs and volunteer firemen. This most brutal of all civil upheavals cost a greater number of lives than any other incident of domestic violence in American history.
Racial and economic tensions had been closely linked since the 1840’s. Before then Negroes had virtually controlled some occupations: longshoremen, hod carriers, brick makers, barbers, waiters, and domestic servants. The Irish influx, particularly after 1846, led to a sharp struggle between the blacks and the newcomers, which the Irish won. Many blacks could find no employment but strike breaking, which often led, particularly on the docks, to violence. Existing animosities were made more severe by the Emancipation Proclamation. Anti-war Democrats told white workers that the freed slaves would all come north and take their jobs. In 1863, when the Conscription Act was passed, Democrats like mayoral candidate Fernando Wood predicted that Republicans would bring in freedmen to take draftees’ jobs while they were away fighting to end slavery. Yet the same men also predicted that the blacks would live lazily on public relief for which the whites would pay taxes.
Class antagonisms were deepened by a provision of the Conscription Act which allowed men to escape conscription by paying $300. In fact, it was resentment over this injustice that started the riot, which began as an assault on draft headquarters. The violence then quickly became directed to an attack on wealthy homes. The role played by ethnic hatreds is made clear by the fact that many of the rioters were Irish laborers, whereas many native American workers had no part in the riot.
The riot lasted three days. Rioters first destroyed the building in which draft headquarters were located, and then marched through the streets, forcing factories and shops to close and recruiting their workers. They cut telegraph lines and tore up railroad tracks. They defeated the first forces sent to oppose them, and mauled the Superintendent of Police almost to death. Now numbering in the thousands, the mob split into several groups. Some burned mansions, some were repulsed in an attack on the Mayor’s house, some burned the colored orphan asylum. An armory on Second Avenue was captured, but many died there when it caught fire. The mob then launched an assault against the city officials, attacking Police Headquarters and fighting pitched battles with the police. As night fell, the mob increasingly turned its fury against blacks, burning, stomping, clubbing, hanging, shooting. On the second day, the mob fought militia armed with cannon. Barricades went up on Ninth Avenue. The Union Steam Works, with a large store of carbines, was seized by the mob, and burning and looting continued throughout the city. More army units were brought in on the third day, and howitzers filled with cannister and grapeshot cut down scores of rioters. Other mobs defeated militia detachments defending shipyards where navy ships were being built. By the fourth day, Union troops returning from Gettysburg were brought in and the riot was finally stopped. The number of casualties is uncertain: estimates have varied widely, from less than a score to as many as 1,000 or 1,200 persons killed or wounded. Numerous deaths were unreported or were attributed to causes other than riots. There were an unknown number of secret burials. The coroner’s office stopped holding inquests, and the burial permit bureau was closed. Undetermined numbers of victims were thrown into the rivers and drowned. The number of victims was probably not less than 300, and may have been much higher. The black population of the city declined 20% between 1860 and 1865, from 12,472 to 9,945, because so many blacks left the city in terror.
There were riots in many Northern cities—Newark, Jersey City, Troy, Boston, Toledo, Evansville, among others—during the war, often stirred up by the draft and by racial issues, though none was as bloody as New York’s.
Three accounts of the New York riot follow. The first is taken from the official army record written by Captain H. R. Putnam of the Twelfth U.S. Infantry; the second is an account by B. Franklin Ryer of the New York City Police; both are printed in the appendix of Joel Tyler Headley: The Great Riots of New York (1873); third is a contemporary account of the fate of some of the rioters’ black victims in David Barnes: The Draft Riots in New York, July, 1863 (1863). See James McCague: The Second Rebellion (1968); Albon P. Man: “Labor Competition and the New York Draft Riots of 1863,” Journal of Negro History, XXXVI (October 1951), 375–405; and The Bloody Week! Riot, Murder and Arson (1863).
Operations on Thursday evening
About six o’clock P.M., General Dodge and Colonel Mott informed General Brown, that the troops at Grammercy Park had marched down Twenty-second Street, and been attacked by an armed mob; that they had been driven back, leaving their dead in the street. The general ordered me to take my company, and a portion of the Twentieth and Twenty-eighth New York volunteer batteries, about eighty men, armed as infantry, commanded by Lieutenant B. F. Ryer. Lieutenant Ryer had with him Lieutenant Robert F. Joyce and Lieutenant F. M. Chase, Twenty-eighth New York battery. My whole command amounted to one hundred and sixty men.
With this force I marched to the Grammercy Hotel. At a short distance from the hotel, I saw some of the rioters fire from a house on some of Colonel Mott’s command. I immediately sent Lieutenant Joyce with a few men to search the house. The search was fruitless, the men having escaped to the rear. I then told the women in the house that the artillery would open on the house, if any more shots were fired from it. We then marched down Twenty-second Street, between Second and Third Avenues, found the body of a sergeant of Davis’ Cavalry, who had been killed two hours before. I ordered a livery-stable keeper to put his horses to a carriage, and accompany me, for the purpose of carrying the dead and wounded. He replied that the mob would kill him if he did, and that he dare not do it. He was informed that he would be protected if he went, but if he refused he would be instantly shot. The horses were speedily harnessed, and the body put into the carriage. The mob at this time commenced firing on us from the houses. We at once commenced searching the houses, while my skirmishers drove the rioters back from every window and from the roofs. The houses were searched from cellar to the roof. The mob made a desperate fight, and evidently seemed to think they could whip us. Every house that was used to conceal these rioters was cleared. A large number was killed, and several prisoners taken. We then marched to Second Avenue, where we found the mob in great force and concealed in houses. They fired on us from house-tops, and from windows, and also from cross streets. We soon cleared the streets, and then commenced searching the houses. We searched thirteen houses, killed those within that resisted, and took the remainder prisoners. Some of them fought like incarnate fiends, and would not surrender. All such were shot on the spot. The soldiers captured a large number of revolvers of large size, which I allowed them to keep. The mob at this place were well armed; nearly every one had some kind of fire-arms, and had one blunderbuss which they fired on us.
If they had been cool and steady, they might have done us great harm. As it was, they fired wildly, running to a window and firing, and then retreating back out of danger.
When my soldiers once got into a house they made short work of it. The fight lasted about forty minutes and was more severe than all the rest in which my company was engaged. There were none of my men killed. Sergeant Cadro, of company F, Twelfth Infantry (my own), was slightly wounded in the hand; private Krouse was also slightly wounded.
The mob being entirely dispersed, we returned to head-quarters.
Sir:—I have the honor to transmit herewith, a report of the operations of my command during the period of the late riots in New York City.
Pursuant to orders from General Brown, I reported to him with my command, which comprised parts of the Twenty-sixth and Twenty-eighth batteries (numbering one hundred men, well armed and equipped, with rifles), on Tuesday, the 14th inst., at about 6 P.M. Immediately on reporting, I received orders to march to Thirty-sixth Street and Second and Third Avenues, to recover the body of Colonel O’Brien, who had been killed in that neighborhood. On arriving there we found that the body had been removed, and no sign of the mob remaining. I immediately marched back to head-quarters in Mulberry Street, and reported the fact about twelve o’clock. I then marched my men through Grand Street, nearly to the ferry, and then backward and forward, through the various narrow streets in that part of the city, without being able to discover any disorderly persons. In this way I marched for four hours, and returned again to head-quarters, at four o’clock A.M., the 15th inst.
About seven o’clock, I again received orders to proceed to Thirty-second Street and Seventh Avenue, and quell the disturbance there at all hazards. I marched there through a heavy rain, and found a crowd of some two hundred or three hundred rioters, who had been engaged in hanging a negro. They immediately dispersed, without my having to fire a shot; I then repaired to the arsenal, Seventh Avenue, to obtain information where I could next meet the mob. I was ordered by General Sandford to march my command inside the lines of his “videttes” and outer pickets. I was then ordered to march to Thirty-second Street and Seventh Avenue, and quell the disturbance, which had broken out anew—the mob trying to break into a house in which a number of negro families had taken refuge. I dispersed the mob, and brought the negroes, some fourteen in number, into the arsenal. I then placed one half of my command across Seventh Avenue and Thirty-second Street, and while in this position, the mob made a rush up the avenue, but were promptly met by two volleys of musketry from my command, when they retired with considerable loss. Soon after one of the rioters endeavored to wrest the musket from the hands of one of my sentries, but received the contents instead. During the time I was engaged with the rioters in Seventh Avenue, Lieutenant Robert F. Joyce, in command of the second platoon, received information that a large number of muskets were concealed in a house on Thirty-second Street, near Broadway, and taking fifteen men from his command, proceeded to the house, and overcoming all the obstacles that were thrown in his way, succeeded in taking seventy-three Enfield rifles with accoutrements; and placing them on a cart brought them to the arsenal, although he was threatened by 500 men in the streets. About four o’clock, information reached me that a large mob had collected in Forty-second Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, and were endeavoring to burn the buildings in that neighborhood. I immediately marched my command, numbering about fifty men (the remainder being on guard near the arsenal), to the scene of the disturbance; on arriving in Forty-second Street, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, we were saluted with groans, hisses, etc., and when at the corner of Tenth Avenue, received a storm of bricks, and missiles of every description, and shots from the roofs and windows of the buildings.
Wheeling the platoons right and left, I formed them so as to sweep the streets and avenue in all directions. I advised the mob to disperse in one minute, or I would fire, there being 2,000 men at least. A few of them moved away, but the greater part remained, when I ordered my troops to fire, and had to fire at least five volleys before I could disperse the mob; when they again commenced firing on us from the windows, and house-tops; one shot fired on us from the windows came near depriving us of a man, as the ball grazed his head, but terminated in nothing serious. I then ordered Lieutenant F. M. Chase to take ten men, and search the houses from top to bottom, which he immediately did, and captured two prisoners. I succeeded finally in clearing the streets and closing the houses, and I remained on the ground as long as there was any necessity for a force there. I then started for the arsenal, but had not progressed more than half a block, when the mob, who had been joined by another crowd of rioters, made a rush up the street, as if to overpower my force. I allowed them to approach very close, with the impression that I was falling back, when I suddenly halted my command, and faced the second platoon to the rear, and fired two more volleys into them. They immediately dispersed, and I was informed it was their last gathering in that locality. There were at least fifty killed, and a large number wounded, and I marched off with my command, without hardly a scratch. Having delivered our prisoners over to the authorities at the Twentieth Precinct station-house, I again returned to the arsenal, and after a slight disturbance there, in which I arrested two of the rioters, I had the privilege of a few minutes rest.
James Costello (colored).—James Costello, No. 97 West Thirty-third Street, killed on Tuesday morning, July 14th. Costello was a shoemaker, an active man in his business, industrious and sober. He went out early in the morning upon an errand, was accosted, and finally was pursued by a powerful man. He ran down the street; endeavored to make his escape; was nearly overtaken by his pursuer; in self-defence he turned and shot the rioter with a revolver. The shot proved to be mortal; he died two days after. Costello was immediately set upon by the mob. They first mangled his body, then hanged it. They then cut down his body and dragged it through the gutters, smashing it with stones, and finally burnt it. The mob then attempted to kill Mrs. Costello and her children, but she escaped by climbing fences and taking refuge in a police station-house.
Abraham Franklin (colored).—This young man, who was murdered by the mob on the corner of Twenty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue, was a quiet, inoffensive man, of unexceptionable character. He was a cripple, but supported himself and his mother, being employed as a coachman. A short time previous to the assault, he called upon his mother to see if anything could be done by him for her safety. The old lady said she considered herself perfectly safe; but if her time to die had come, she was ready to die. Her son then knelt down by her side, and implored the protection of Heaven in behalf of his mother. The old lady said that it seemed to her that good angels were present in the room. Scarcely had the supplicant risen from his knees, when the mob broke down the door, seized him, beat him over the head and face with fists and clubs, and then hanged him in the presence of his parent. While they were thus engaged the military came and drove them away, cutting down the body of Franklin, who raised his arm once slightly and gave a few signs of life. The military then moved on to quell other riots, when the mob returned and again suspended the now probably lifeless body of Franklin, cutting out pieces of flesh, and otherwise shockingly mutiliating it.…
William Jones (colored).—A crowd of rioters in Clarkson Street, in pursuit of a negro, who in self-defence had fired on some rowdies, met an inoffensive colored man returning from a bakery with a loaf of bread under his arm. They instantly set upon and beat him and, after nearly killing him, hung him to a lamp-post. His body was left suspended for several hours. A fire was made underneath him, and he was literally roasted as he hung, the mob reveling in their demoniac act.…
—–Williams (colored).—He was attacked on the corner of Le Roy and Washington Streets, on Tuesday morning, July 14th, knocked down, a number of men jumped upon, kicked, and stamped upon him until insensible. One of the murderers knelt on the body and drove a knife into it; the blade being too small he threw it away and resorted to his fists. Another seized a huge stone, weighing near twenty pounds, and deliberately crushed it again and again on to the victim. A force of police, under Captain Dickson, arrived and rescued the man, who was conveyed to the New York Hospital. He was only able to articulate “Williams” in response to a question as to his name, and remained insensible thereafter, dying in a few days.